l62 



LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



On Foot. 

 " The Axe and Compasses " on a Saturday means a full house, means a 

 great day or a bad one, by shift of the vane. Let it point E., then saddle 

 the best horse in your stable ; shift to the west, with blue haze and a drip 

 on the hedgerow, keep on your shooting boots. " Gone for Dobbs " as we 

 drove up to the meet, but "are due at Lords and Leaden at midday" 

 greeted our ears. So this accounted for the extra bustle and excitement in 

 the yard of the " King William," as numerous second horses had been sent 

 on there to await events. It must have been close upon one o'clock when, 

 in company with a keeper and three or four farm hands, we took our station 

 at a corner of Lords Wood, into which hounds had that very instant been 



McAdam T. Christy A. Waters C. E. Green 



En route to the "Axe and Compasses," November 21, 1896 



thrown. The mist had grown denser, and the drip of it from the trees on 

 the dead leaves beneath the only sound save for the heavy breathing of 

 one of the men, and the occasional ring of the huntsman's cheer, that broke 

 the dead silence, for to see a fox, a real wild fox, break cover with hounds 

 at his brush had these men patiently waited the hour or more. 



The huntsman's voice rang out clearer and more distinct — they were 

 coming nearer, and like the rush of a salmon down stream ; a single black- 

 and-tan hound dashed full speed through the covert, and next moment a 

 single piping note proclaimed the find, and the other hounds flew to the 

 cry. Tally-ho back ! from Easterby, and jumping leisurely out of the 

 covert, and crossing a corner of a ploughed field, before re-entering the 

 wood we had a capital view of a fox's cunning dodges, as hounds rather 

 overshot the mark. However bad scent might have been out of covert, 

 there was no want of it in, and they drove him down to the bottom end with 

 a will. Baker's quick ear catching the return note, and with the remark, " It 

 is the same hound leading," the fox broke view again, this time at a much 



